


Innocent

by cnroth



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/F, The Borg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnroth/pseuds/cnroth
Summary: Seven has a flashback to the childhood she barely remembers.
Relationships: Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> _Who you are is not where you’ve been_   
>  _You’re still an innocent_
> 
> —Taylor Swift

It had taken all of Seven’s resolve to stay calm when Raffi shared a story about her estranged son. The hardship wasn’t due to Raffi’s emotions regarding Gabe, which seemed at times to parallel the pain Seven carried for Icheb. They had both lost sons in their own ways.

No, this time it was because the story was of Raffi’s son at age six—the same age Seven was when the Borg assimilated her.

Raffi was sleeping now, the bittersweet sorrow of her past temporarily soothed by dry wine and soft lips. For a little while, Seven had been able to push down the old trauma that wanted to claw its way out of her chest—to put it out of mind and focus solely on Raffi’s silky, hazel skin.

After the heat passed and the lights went out, Raffi drifted peacefully into unconsciousness. Seven, however, did not. A different child danced in her mind’s eye—a girl called Annika with bouncing blonde ringlets that her mother had so carefully shaped for this day, who wore a bright red dress and whose blue-green eyes sparkled with joy at the sight of a ballerina birthday cake made especially for her.

A girl who had no idea that her life was about to be stolen and twisted into something entirely inhuman. Whose very name would be stripped from her so completely that it would never fit right again, even after she was set free.

Seven barely remembered this girl. It ached that she could recall vast amounts of knowledge assimilated by the collective, and could learn new things so easily, yet she knew almost nothing about who she’d been before the Borg took her. It came in flashes—moments from years past surfacing just long enough for a glimpse, even when she tried to hold onto them. 

On _Voyager_ , Captain Janeway gave Seven the logs her parents had kept during the mission that ultimately led to their assimilation. When Seven read them, she could almost reach the life that once had been hers. Still, it felt detached, like seeing someone else’s memories instead of her own.

It felt like reading a tragedy.

“After they brought you back from your time in the collective,” she’d asked Picard the first time they met, “do you honestly feel that you regained your humanity?”

“Yes,” he’d insisted.

“All of it?”

He’d hesitated for just a moment, then admitted, “No. But we’re both working on it, aren’t we?”

His question echoed through Seven’s mind now, weaving through the strands of her six-year-old self’s laughter.

“Every damn day of my life,” she’d said, squeezing the grips of her phasers to remind herself that she was strong despite the catch in her voice. 

Only minutes after that raw conversation, she’d killed the woman who murdered her son.

Could she honestly say she’d reclaimed her humanity when, despite her few remaining good intentions, she snuffed out life so easily? The people she killed deserved it, no doubt. They were bad people who abused and murdered the innocent, the forgotten. Seven did the dirty work so others could stay safe and lead good, meaningful lives. Still, she was a killer.

Seven’s child-self twirled, red skirt flaring out like a flower all around her.

_“But we’re both working on it, aren’t we?”_

Into the darkness of Raffi’s quarters, Seven whispered, “Every damn day of my life.”


End file.
